


Winging It

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Innuendo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strangely enough, this is the one time Roy <em>didn't</em> expect to be cruising at 37,000 feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winging It

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because airline travel makes me a salty bitch, so when I was leaving for my grandmother's funeral and saw a girl curling her hair in the airport bathroom, my first thought was "Do you think you're going to find your damn soulmate on the plane?"
> 
> My second thought was "ROY/ED AU WHERE ED HAS A PHOBIA OF FLYING!!!!"
> 
> And now we're here.
> 
> Don't worry; karma made sure I caught the Plague on my way back. :|

There are two problems with the young man sitting in the window seat when Roy settles down next to the aisle for the first leg of his flight:

The first problem is that he’s so staggeringly attractive that they should have draconian laws regulating his exposure in public, for the general good of the greater populace.

The second is that he looks absolutely fucking _terrified_.

Arguably, there’s a third problem, but it’s so likely to be a subset of the second that Roy’s not sure it’s fair to classify it by itself: he’s solving a Rubik’s cube so fast his fingers are practically a blur.

Roy slides into his seat as gingerly as he can without holding up the progress of the other passengers in the aisle.

“Good afternoon,” he offers.

The miserable muse startles like he’s been struck and glances over with a stain of pink in his cheeks, as though he’s embarrassed to be so demonstrably high-strung.

“Hey,” he says, cautiously, and the eyes that rake up and down Roy’s face—and linger for a split-second too long on the sliver of skin at his open collar—are a curious color of brown so pale and richly-toned it almost looks like gold.

Roy slings his laptop bag underneath the row in front and nudges it into place with his toes.  “Are you all right?” he asks.

The extraordinary eyes narrow, like it’s somehow suspicious to inquire after the welfare of one’s fellow man when the fellow man in question is pale as a sheet and fidgeting like a crack addict waiting for a hit.

…Roy will not be sharing that particular observation in so many words.

“Fine,” the young man says.  The eyes soften, and the rest of his face follows; there’s a strange _purity_ to the transparency of it, and Roy…

Roy despairs.  Because there’s a tug at the very base of his heart, like a hook on a line, and he’s not sure he can bear the rigmarole of getting reeled in, gutted, and cast back into the water for the umpteenth time.

“Thanks,” the young man says.  He scowls again—like it’s a form of protection.  Preemptively, expecting something else to come.  “It’s—just—this is the first time I’ve ever been on a freakin’ plane.”

“Goodness,” Roy says.

The young man eyes him, and the flickering fingers go back to the cube.  “Badness, if you wanna know.”

“It’s really not as scary as it sounds,” Roy says.

He’s speaking from a place of some authority, of course, and you’d think one could hear it in his voice, but the young man’s expression doesn’t shift a whit.

“We’ll see,” he says, in a tone that makes it sound like they’re discussing a long-term grudgematch, not a flight.

“Really,” Roy says.  He pities whoever gets trapped in the middle seat.  “What are you concerned about?”

Colors clack past each other so swiftly that he can’t help glancing down to watch the way that they align.  The yellow side is finished—and then the green—and then the blue.  The cube whirls like a dervish, and all the while the young man’s eyes never leave Roy’s face.

“I dunno,” he says.  “I mean, I get—the physics of it, you know; I get how it _works_.  I guess it’s—it’s just that—it shouldn’t even… work.  It seems like it shouldn’t even work.  Like this is some Icarus sh—” He pauses, swallows, and glances past Roy at the other passengers.  “…stuff.  Like it’s—impossible, and we oughta be struck down, or—”

“I can see that,” Roy says, although he’s stretching the truth a bit even with such a noncommittal platitude.  “But—believe me—I’ve flown quite a lot, and it’s really not as dangerous as you might think.”

Those eyes are absolutely inescapable.  It’s _mesmerizing_.  “I know it’s not statistically—although I’ve got such improbably bad f—” He huffs a brief half-sigh.  “Bad… luck… that I’m probably the worst person you can put on a plane if you ever wanna get there.  I can’t believe we boarded on time.”

“It is a bit of a trial sometimes,” Roy says.  “I’m glad this wasn’t one of them.”

Still with the suspicion—sharper-edged and cooler than just regular doubt.  “Yeah.”

Roy attempts to cross his legs at the knee and finds himself foiled by the seat in front of him.  He should have wasted a few more of those endless points on the extra leg-room after all; it’s been so long since he flew coach that he’d honestly forgotten how crappy it can be.

“Do you tend to get carsick?” he asks.  “I’ve heard that can be a bad sign.”

The young man shrugs with just his left shoulder.  “Nah.  My brother used to—really bad.”  He looks down at the casually completed Rubik’s cube and starts mixing it up again.  “He’s the one I’m flying for.  ’Cause he’s an asshole who had to go and get in to Harvard and shit.”  His head lifts, the better to display an instantly guilt-stricken expression.  “And—stuff.”  He stops spinning tiers of the cube long enough to gesture towards a small leather messenger bag pushed carefully underneath the seat.  “He sent me that, though—with, like… everything.  I guess.  Everything he thought I’d need—Advil and a decongestant and an anti-emetic and sh…” A wince this time.  “…things.”

“So you’re visiting him?” Roy asks.  The other seats are filling, but the one between them stays blessedly unoccupied.  A flight attendant ghosts past and starts to wrangle with some luggage protruding from one of the overhead bins.  “How long are you staying?”

“Two weeks,” the young man says, with more than just a flavor of a sigh.  “It’s—I mean, it’s not anywhere near long enough; it’s… not having him around’s like missing a f—friggin’ limb.”  His mouth twists into a terrible, terrible, _cruel_ mockery of a smile.  “Don’t ask me how I know.”  Roy couldn’t if he wanted to; there isn’t time before the cube starts spinning, and the words go on: “But it’s all I could get.  My boss actually fought it pretty hard.  I guess people sorta slack off in lab when I’m not there, even though most of the time I think she hates me.”  His expression turns contemplative.  “Guess she hates everybody, though.  Sort of indiscriminately.”

“What kind of lab is it?” Roy asks.  The bins are clicking shut; one of the attendants sweeps by and starts digging for the props for the safety demonstration.

“Chemistry,” the young man says.  “But we do a lot of math.  Or I do.  I dunno, we’re trying to branch out.  The department’s historically kind of a bunch of reclusive nerds, and Olivier really wants to change that, ’cause she’s sick of the look people get when we say where we’re from.  Plus I think she just hates the status quo even more than she hates people, so…”

Roy’s known a few of those.

“Delightful,” he says.

The young man cracks a smile, and _hell_ , that can’t be _legal_ —

“Somethin’ like that,” he says.

His head snaps up as the pilot starts announcing their approximate flight time—still on target; that’s nice—like the disembodied announcement is the voice of God.  The engines rumble louder underneath the ongoing hiss of the recycled air, and there is _panic_ in the way his gaze darts out the window and then back to Roy.

He jabs a finger outward, towards the wing.  “There’s—there’s stuff falling off of it, practically; is that—?”

“It’s fine,” Roy says.  “They’re designed that way.”

One hand clutches the half-done Rubik’s cube, and the other grips the arm-rest so tight his knuckles drain.

“This can’t be safe,” he says.  “Everybody says it’s safe, but it _can’t_ —”

They taxi backwards, jolting over some uneven paving, and he startles so violently this time that the Rubik’s cube pops out of his hand.

Roy snatches it out of the air before it can fall and sets it safely on the empty seat between them.

“It’s fine,” he says, in the single most soothing of all his voices—smoother even than the one _he_ uses over the P.A.  “It’s a great model, and the weather’s clear.”

“Right _now_ it is,” the young man says, glaring at him sideways like he’s planning to make it rain in Cambridge, Massachusetts just for sport.  “I checked the Dopplers for the whole trip, but it _could_ get—”

They’re at the head of the lengthiest runway on this airfield.  The pilot pauses long enough for Roy’s chance-encounter charge to begin to relax—and then starts to hit the gas.

“We’re just—driving,” the young man manages.  His cube-free hand is clenched in the leg of his jeans now; _God_ , the intensity of his fight with the fear is making _Roy_ hurt.  “That’s—I mean, we’re not gonna _drive_ there, are we?  There’s gotta be a part where—”

The captain guns it.

The cabin rattles, and then it starts to rise.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” the young man gasps out, and then they hit the elevator-lurch where your stomach drops out, and Roy’s not sure whether the guy’s more likely to vomit or to cry.

“It’s _okay_ ,” Roy says, and he can’t help it anymore—he has to reach over and put a hand on the poor kid’s shoulder.

He earns a nice, sharp flinch for his trouble.

“It’s not,” the kid says, and even though he’s turned towards the window, Roy can see that his eyes are huge; the shoulder under Roy’s hand heaves with the whims of his quickening breath.  “It’s not; it’s _not_ ; Al was wrong; we’re gonna _die_ , and I won’t even get to see him aga—”

“We are perfectly safe,” Roy says.  “You’re going to be _fine_ , I promise; this is an excellent plane, and that was a practiced takeoff, and there’s _nothing_ to worry about.”

The young man manages to focus on him for long enough to swallow, though he can’t dig up a frown from underneath the anxiety.

“How the fuck do you know?” he asks.

“I’m a pilot,” Roy says.

The young man’s eyes widen so far it’s almost laughable even here and now.

“Then who the _fuck_ is driving the plane?” he squeaks.

“Not _the_ pilot,” Roy says; “ _a_ pilot—”

The young man stares at him like he just announced that he’s gay for Vladimir Putin.  “Then what the f—” He sputters.  “— _heck_ , what the _heck_ —what the actual freaking heck do you even know about it if it’s not your flight, and it’s not your plane, and you’re not in the whatsit-thing—”

“Cockpit,” Roy says, keeping his face as painstakingly neutral as he’s able.

The guy blinks.  “Y… Yeah, the…”

“The _cock_ ,” Roy says, slowly and deliberately, enunciating every consonant, “ _pit_.”

The corner of the young man’s tightly-drawn mouth twitches—just a little, just a touch, but it’s a handhold.  “Why do they even call it that?  It’s not a pit, and there aren’t any…”

“Well, there’s one when I’m flying,” Roy says.

The kid stares at him.

And then _laughs_.

It’s short, sweet, and remarkably bright—which only suits him—and it’s also entirely incredulous.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he says.  “You talk that way to everybody you ride with?”

“Given a certain definition of ‘ride with’,” Roy says calmly, “yes.”

The shock gives way to an adorable flush of slightly mortified amusement.  “Holy _crap_ , uh—” He pauses.  “What’s your name, anyway?  So I can fuckin’ _shame_ you better.”  He scowls.  “And so if I ever hear _you’re_ the one flying the plane, I can jump out the door and run for the fuckin’ hills.”

“Probably the best solution,” Roy says.  He releases the kid’s shoulder in order to offer his hand.  “Roy Mustang.  Pleasure.”

It is an unsung tragedy how much a good handshake can influence Roy’s opinion of another human being—this particular specimen hardly needs any more help in that department, but his grip epitomizes the sort of gentle confidence Roy always wishes for in a world of clammy palms and weak, limp-fish squeezes.

“Ed Elric,” he says.  “You sure that’s your real name?”

Ed Elric has not noticed that they’ve finished their ascent, and they’re cruising placidly through the open air.

“Last I checked,” Roy says.

Ed grins at him, and one eyebrow arches, and he must have a beautiful young girlfriend—one who treasures him and fetes him and volunteers to cook and clean and someday wants to produce a half a dozen beautiful blond children.  Hell, he might already have several of them; Roy wouldn’t judge.

“Maybe you should check again,” Ed says.  “Sounds like a stage name to me.”

“Or a penname,” Roy says.  “I’m sure I’d write magnificent bestsellers.”  He pauses for effect.  “Or pulpy trash.”

“Both,” Ed says.  “So do I have to call you Captain Mustang, or what?  Sounds like the friggin’ rum.”

“You don’t have to,” Roy says, “but I certainly wouldn’t object.  I’d feel very important.”  He can’t fucking help himself; he is a travesty of a man; he flashes his single most dazzling hundred-watt smile and just barely resists the urge to wink.  “On second thought, yes, you _have_ to call me that.”

Ed wrinkles his nose.  “That’s what I get for being polite and shit.”

Roy flips his armrest up so he can shift a little, making a valiant effort to uncramp his legs using the empty seat.

Also, to set a casual example so that Ed knows it can be done.

“It’s an unjust world,” he says.

“Don’t I know it,” Ed says, and there’s a note of darkness underneath the small-talky tone.  His eyes linger on Roy for just a second before he directs them towards the window, and _that_ —that is promising, though it’s a long way yet from a guarantee.  “Whoa, get a look at those _clouds_.  They always look like that from up here?”

“Just about,” Roy says.  “I’m always craving mashed potatoes by the time I land—every flight, never fails.”

This grin’s brighter.  “Now you’re speakin’ my language.”  He leans in until his nose is very nearly pressed against the glass.  “S’friggin’ wild.  Dunno how it even—I mean, I know how it _works_ , but sometimes when you see it, it’s like understanding the principles that make it look so mysterious actually makes it more magical in the long run, you know?”

There are two pressing issues in Roy’s psyche at the moment, which are that he has not consumed enough caffeine today; and he has not gotten laid in far too long.  He blames both of these deprivations for the fact that he barely bites back the urge to respond with _“That’s how I feel about sex.”_

“It’s an extraordinary thing,” he says.  “We were never meant to do this—to be airborne, of all things—and yet somehow the progress of human history has led us here.”

Ed smiles at him.  He’s still got a death grip on one of his armrests; he doesn’t really seem to notice.

Or perhaps he knows all too well, and it’s how he’s staying stable.  Roy’s no stranger to coping mechanisms, or to crises, or to clinging onto the only thing you recognize as safe.

“Yeah,” he says.  “And, I mean—not just _humans_ , either—if you think about it, that first freakin’ amoeba paved the way for this, right?  And I guess it’s kind of a stretch to say we’re the pinnacle of much of anything, given all the stupid crap that people do, but—we’ve done some pretty amazing stuff.”

“The combination of opposable thumbs and advanced intellect has brought us a long way,” Roy says.

“Yeah,” Ed says again, sounding almost at peace.  He pauses, glances briefly at Roy’s inner-side armrest, experimentally presses the button and then slowly raises his, and draws his bag up from by his feet to set it on the middle seat.  “You talking about mashed potatoes made me hungry.  You want some food?”

The one thing Roy would really like to put his mouth around is off-limits—possibly permanently; certainly while they’re in the air.  At least in the cabin.  If this was _his_ flight, he could show Ed a fucking _cockpit_ , for the record—

Better not to think about that, now or any time he doesn’t want to get a seriously inconvenient boner.

He smiles, calmly.  “I think I’m all right, but thank you.”

“Sure,” Ed says, already digging through his bag.  “Al says I go through, like, a bazillion calories a day, and my friend Winry says I get ‘hangry’, so she buys me Snickers bars all the time, because she thinks she’s hilarious.”

“Do they help?” Roy asks.

“No,” Ed says.  He extracts a granola bar from the bowels of the bag.  “I’m not angry ’cause I’m hungry; I’m angry ’cause the world is stupid most of the time.”  He decimates the wrapper and then takes a bite that encompasses half of the bar, which Roy intuits may have something to do with others’ strong opinions on his eating habits.  “Except science,” he says through a mouthful of granola.  “And Al.  Science and Al are good.”  He swallows, and Roy grapples with the immense temptation to gaze longingly at the contours of his throat.  “Most of the rest of it’s dumb, though.”

“Hard to argue with that,” Roy says.

Ed shrugs with just his left shoulder again.  Roy can’t help wondering if it’s a habit, or if for some reason he doesn’t have a choice.  “Al also says I’m ‘getting cynical in my old age’.  Win always says I’ve been a jerk since I was five, so that can’t be it.”

“Only since kindergarten?” Roy asks.  “I like to think I was cultivating my atrocious personality well before I left the womb.”

Ed laughs again, and that should not be so rewarding.  “Ambitious from the get-go,” he says.  “I like that.”

“That makes one person I’ve ever met,” Roy says.

Ed rummages in the bag, retrieves something, and holds out…

…a Snickers bar, of course.

“Have some chocolate,” he says.  “You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Roy takes it, even though processed sugar is The Enemy, and empty calories are an unsatisfactory taste of hell itself.  “Is that scientifically proven?”

“Sorta,” Ed says.  “Endorphins and shit.  But you gotta hold out for the magic part.”

Roy’s always had more of a penchant for dark chocolate, on the occasions he indulges outside of extracurricular applications of chocolate syrup.  But Ed’s watching him, hopeful and intent, so he peels the wrapper open and nibbles obligingly at the work of Satan.

“You kinda look like you need some magic,” Ed says, and his smile tilts sheepish but doesn’t fade.  “Uh—that—came out sounding way freakin’ weirder than I expected.”

“I didn’t think it was too bad,” Roy says.  “Out of context, I might’ve thought you were a little unhinged, but…”

Appropriately enough, Ed snickers.

Then they hit a rattling bump of turbulence, and the hard-won relaxation disintegrates, scattering to reveal the terror still expanding underneath.

Ed’s hand fixes itself instantaneously on Roy’s forearm—tight and warm and desperate, and Roy can feel the pulse beating far too fast in Ed’s fingertips, and it is _wretched_ to have to witness another human being enduring this extremely pointed sort of pain.

Better still, the fear and a surge of flushed humiliation go to war on Ed’s face instantly, and his hand recoils like he’d plunged it into boiling water.

“Sorry,” he says, voice strained almost to cracking.  “Shit—sorry—I just—” He wrings at his own sleeve instead, and the armrest gets another thorough compression.  “I—”

“That’s totally normal,” Roy says, and he masks the hesitation as he reaches out to lay his hand on Ed’s shoulder again—shoulders are safe, right? Shoulders are far enough away from all of the secrets spaces as to be platonic.  “Your reaction, I mean, and the movement.  It’s fine, and you’re going to be fine.”

Ed manages to pry his hand off of the armrest long enough to enlist it and its brother for covering his face.  “I’m such a fucking _mess_.”

It is definitively less platonic to rub one’s thumb very gently at another person’s collarbone as a gesture of solidarity, but Roy thinks he’s entitled to bend the rules.  “No, you’re not.  Everyone’s scared the first time.”

One eye emerges around the side of the hand-wall to assess him.  The visible segment of cheek beneath it is decidedly red.  “Were you?”

“Horrified,” Roy says.  “And exhilarated.”  Mostly the latter, but that’s not the point.  “Turbulence always makes it feel like you’re going to fall out of the sky, but I don’t believe that’s happened once since Wilbur and Orville Wright.”

Ed’s hands part just enough for him to squint at Roy.  “You got statistics for that?”

“Tons,” Roy says, “that I just made up.”

Ed’s mouth twitches towards a smile.  “To be fair, any scientist who tells you’ve they’ve never fudged any data is probably full of shit.”

“I’m an expert on being full of shit,” Roy says.

The tentatively-spreading smile dies in an instant as they hit another patch of rough air, jarring the plane so severely this time that Ed’s bag almost bounces off the seat.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ed whimpers into the renewed shield of his hands.

Roy rubs at his shoulder again.  It’s far too intimate; how _dare_ he take advantage like this?  Good thing they’ve already got a seat roped off for him in hell.  They’re probably embroidering his name on the cushion now.  He’s envisioning some spiked manacles and at least one jet of flame.

“It’s fine,” he says.  “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I promise—this is totally routine.”

“Your routine sucks,” Ed tells him in a tiny voice.

“I’ll make sure the local climate patterns are aware,” Roy says.

Alarmingly, he can’t distinguish whether the sound that chokes out of Ed now is a chuckle or a sob.

He tightens his grip on Ed’s shoulder as the cabin shudders once more, twice more, and then…

Stillness.

Which is a trick of the cabin pressure for their benefit, of course, given that they’re moving at about five hundred and fifty miles an hour—but serenely, now, which is the important thing.

Carefully—no sudden movements; better not to draw attention to it—Roy withdraws his hand.

It’s his damn turn to startle as Ed fumbles to catch his wrist, seizing on tinglingly tight.

“Hey,” Ed says, shakily.  “If we survive this—”

“When,” Roy says.

“Easy for you to say,” Ed says, gaze aimed out the window at the mashed-potato clouds.  “Well—fuck— _if_ we—defy all rational odds and make it outta this alive, can I—can I buy you a drink?  ’Cause you’ve been so—damn— _nice_ this whole time, and you don’t owe me shit, so I dunno why, but—”

He glances over, which seems to alert him to the fact that he’s still got a stranglehold on Roy’s arm—he immediately lets go and shoves his hand down at his side, like he’s going to sit on it in another second if it doesn’t behave.

“Anyway,” he says with a hint of a croak.  “It’s—I wanna—thank you.  And I know _I’m_ gonna need a drink, so—can I?”

That sounds more than just friendly, but Roy cannot— _cannot_ —presume.  He’s imposed far too much of his will already, hasn’t he?  Managing his own damn charisma is a dangerous game; it always gets muddled somewhere down the line.  He manipulates people towards the end he wants without even noticing that he’s guided the course of events, and afterwards, when the house of cards built from a stacked deck comes tumbling down—

“I’d be honored,” he says.  “How long do you have before your connecting flight?”

“Two hours,” Ed says, and a trace of a smile sneaks back onto his face.  “Wanted to leave time in case there were delays or whatever, or they lost my bag, or… y’know.”

“Excellent,” Roy says, instead of _I’ll reschedule mine sometime after I miss the first one_.  “One more question.”

Ed’s fingers curl into his jeans again, but the start of a smile burgeons into something rather more prominent—and rather more goddamn _stunning_ , as a matter of fact.  “Shoot.”

Roy holds up his demon-bar.  “What kind of liquor goes best with a Snickers?”

This noise is definitely a laugh.


End file.
